


I Turn'd to the Garden of Love

by Dashicra1, saintofnovember



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Blatant abuse of poetry, Canon-typical Alcohol Consumption, Crowley Gets Dragged By All Poets Ever: The Fic, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang, First Kiss, Historical Settings, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other, Philosophy, Seriously so much poetry, The Romantic Era, crowley is dramatic, discussion of religion, happy/hopeful ending, love poetry, so much symbolism, with art!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dashicra1/pseuds/Dashicra1, https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintofnovember/pseuds/saintofnovember
Summary: Crowley had always been enamored with words, and he had always wanted to use them for a single specific purpose: to woo Aziraphale. The invention of poetry further inflamed his drive, and Crowley has spent thousands of years tracking down various influential poets in the hopes of getting them to help him on his journey. These are the stories of those poets and the events that led to a confession millennia in the making.Featuring beautiful artworks bysaintofnovemberand a story by Dashicra1.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	1. The Word

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone, and welcome to the adventure! This work is a part of the Good Omens Reverse Bang, and I am so happy to be sharing it with the world! This really has been a labor of love, and I hope you all enjoy the ride <3  
> The spectacular artwork is by the inimitable Egan, otherwise known as Saintofnovember, and the prose was written by me (Dashicra)!  
> Special thanks go to my beta readers, Burnttongueontea (britpicking/beta reading) and saintofnovember, and thanks also to those friends of mine who struggled alongside me while this fic was in process (you know who you are!).  
> One last shout-out to the wonderful people on the GO Events Discord for all the support! I love all of you!
> 
> The poetry at the start of each chapter was written by the poet named in the chapter title! I take no credit for these works, so please keep that in mind! <3
> 
> .

The humans had such a knack for language, Crawly thought. Each day, the air was filled with conversation, music formed of magnificent words. The humans had tested, developed, and spoken thousands of sounds into existence, had imbued them with meaning. They’d made names for animals, plants, and even Crawly himself. 

Some time early in Crawly’s Earth Assignment, Adam, the taller of the humans, had watched Crawly make his inexperienced way up into a tree. He’d laughed, enamored with the twisting, inching motions of Crawly’s narrow body. Crawly had hissed at him, offended at the very notion that the _human,_ with all its gangly, embarrassing limbs, might dare to find his litheness _funny._ Adam had smiled and called him Serpent.1 When Crawly had responded, asked him to _please quit staring like that, would you,_ Adam’s smile had widened in wonder, amazed that there was another besides God, Eve, and himself who could make words.2 Adam had given him a Name, then. _Crawly._

It was a description of his movements and nothing more, but Crawly had not had a Name since before he’d Fallen, and _that_ Name had been lost to time immemorial. Crawly had loved him for it, that simple act of distinction, of acknowledgement. He had loved language for giving Adam the freedom to distinguish him from the other snakes in the Garden. As he spent more time with the humans and observed their interactions with words, with sound, he loved them for their ingenuity in finding ways to name things, to express emotion. They loved each other, they said so, and Crawly loved every word.

When the deed had been done and the humans had been sent away, Crawly sat coiled up in shadow and silence for hours and tried to take comfort in the chittering of birdsong or the burbles of the stream. It was no use. He’d used words, they’d listened, and somehow, it had hurt them. The humans had taken their words away with them as they’d set out into the desert, and Crawly was alone. 

There was an Angel stood overlooking the Eastern Gate, one he’d seen before, one who’d turned his eyes toward the Garden wistfully every now and then,3 and Crawly decided that hearing words again was worth anything.4

Minutes later, Crawly stood on a wall,5 sheltered by a white wing, having had a _conversation_ for the first time since he could remember, and nothing had gone wrong. More than ever, he wished that the humans were near, loving each other, and saying so, and maybe loving Crawly too. He peeked at the Angel from behind a curtain of his hair and wondered if somebody would love him, and say so, if he said he loved them first.

  1. Of course, the word Adam had actually used was from a language long lost to time, but the looping syllables and sussurating sibilants remained in Crawly’s mind for millenia afterward, even through the shifting tide of linguistics. 
  2. The Angels, of course, had been given firm orders to observe the humans without interference, and were therefore forbidden from speaking to the humans in their charge. Adam and Eve had referred to the Angels as the Silent Ones. That is, until one particular Angel thought it prudent to offer up a sword. 
  3. The Angel had done much more than look down at the Garden, and had quietly sampled the fruits and strolled under the trees himself. However, he had done so carefully, and had not uttered a word so as not to arouse suspicion. Then, when suspicion had nonetheless been aroused, the Angel had given it all away in more ways than one. 
  4. Most of the demons were technically capable of speech, but they preferred to growl, shriek, scream, or groan. Words, words were reserved only to give commands or to inspire hate in Hell. 
  5. He was wearing his own set of gangly, embarrassing limbs, and he’d almost decided that he liked them. 




	2. Phaedrus by Plato (370 B.C.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley goes to Greece, shares a moment with a philosopher, and learns a thing or two.

The humans continued to practice language, to refine it through centuries of trial and error. Even after humanity was left to start all over again with soggy ground beneath their feet and colored light across the sky, even after a curious mishap with a tower meant to reach to Heaven1 and the splintering of language into unrecognizable forms, they soldiered on. They became smarter and more creative with every passing phrase. Accents changed, connotations changed, and “Crawly” no longer seemed to inspire affection and curiosity as much as it did revulsion,2 so he introduced himself as Crowley when asked by the friendlier people in Athens.

It had been some 3600 years or so since the first Garden had been barred to humanity, and they seemed to have done well enough on their own. Noise and chatter rang out from every direction, and the humans were always terribly proud of themselves for developing the idea to live together, for working so hard just to keep other people nearby for them to talk to. The city was great, and Crowley never hurt for conversation and engaging questions while he hung around the symposiums, but sometimes one liked a bit of space and a return to something green.

Crowley lounged against a lovely tree and beside a lovely stream just outside the city. The air was balmy in that Mediterranean way, but storms liked to lurk along the coastline, and a few dark clouds whispered menacingly in the distance. The long, loose fabric of his dark toga fluttered against his ankles where they rested on the grass. It was almost perfect. Suddenly, there was a loud grunt somewhere behind him. Crowley turned and saw a short, stocky, angry fellow who carried an armload of scrolls against his chest and gripped a stylus like one would hold a knife in his free hand. Crowley wracked his mind to determine where he knew the man from, and when he’d realized, he sighed to himself.

“You’re that guy who follows that other guy around in the symposium, aren’t you? The two of you have all the questions,” Crowley said, craning his neck to get a good look at the stranger and hoping that the shade would help to hide his eyes.

The man harrumphed and grumbled, seemingly as upset as proud to be recognized. “I am. My name is Platon, however, not ‘that guy,’ if you would be so kind. And I had come here to have some quiet and to begin my latest work, so if you wouldn’t mind scooting along, I do indeed have important questions to ask.”

Crowley took a moment to process this. “Are you asking _yourself_ questions? Because I doubt the tree or the stream will be terribly forthcoming.”3

The man, Platon, puffed up in response, widening his stance and taking up as much room as his not-inconsiderable breadth would allow. “I ask questions of the world and of the gods, and whether I receive answers is of no consequence. The asking is its own reward.”

Crowley sat up and turned to face Platon more fully, intrigued. “Well, might I join you? I’ve been told I’m pretty decent at the whole asking things business.”

Platon gave a great whoosh of a sigh and stepped over to join Crowley in the shade of the tree. He fussed and shuffled until he was lounging comfortably, took up his stylus and one of the scrolls, and levelled Crowley with an assessing gaze. A devious twinkle appeared in his eye, and Crowley had the distinct impression that he may have gotten in a bit over his head. He forgot about hiding his eyes and stared back, suddenly desperate to be intimidating. If it had any effect, Platon didn’t show it. “Tell me. What kind of love is most virtuous? Allow me to specify. Who is more deserving of love: Those who love deeply and desire it most, or those who are loyal without passion?”

Crowley flinched, Aziraphale’s face coming sharply into focus in his mind, with all his stubborn kindness and frigid distance.4 “Well, that’s a bit reductive, isn’t it?”

Platon readied his stylus, his entire body tense with anticipation. “How so?”

“Humans don’t really need those kinds of distinctions anyway, right?” Thoughts of Aziraphale threatened to overwhelm him, to either stop up his tongue entirely or set it loose without inhibition. Crowley took a steadying breath and tried again. “You just. Spend your whole life being pulled in two directions, sometimes more than two, and use all that time to try to categorize things into good things and bad things, when more often than not, they’re just _things,_ ya know? Everyone’s got a little good and a little bad in them. It’s the balance that makes everything work!

“Who says it’s selfish to want love more than everybody else? What does it matter? If all your time is spent trying to love everybody equally, trying to measure it out in little doses because it’s _bad_ to have _too much passion_ or whatever, you might miss out on something really special.” Crowley’s eyes itched. He ignored it and focused on the question. What was the question again? Who deserves love? Apparently not Crowley. _No, no,_ he thought fiercely, _don’t do that. Not here._

He uncapped the little metaphysical phial of hope he kept deep within his chest, allowing it to spread over the verbal barbs he’d spent centuries trying to ignore. He imagined Aziraphale, patient and kind and friendly and snotty and witty Aziraphale, somehow loving him back. “And the other way around, too! If you spend all your time looking for something crazy and perfect that makes you feel something, you might not notice somebody who cares about you and treats you nice all quietly from the sidelines, who just wants to do what’s best for you. Right?”

Platon didn’t answer for several moments, too busy scratching away at the scroll. When he did look up, his expression was pensive. “Your phrasing needs some work, and you are clearly woefully untrained in the art of rhetoric.” Crowley glared at him, but he continued undeterred. “You have raised some decent questions, however. Who indeed is to say that loving someone even unto madness is shameful and evil, when madness is itself a gift from the gods? No, no, love cannot be wholly evil, nor can it be wholly good. I believe, young man, that love simply _is,_ as you have said, and we must eternally fight amongst ourselves to experience the most beauty in love, and also the most humanity. What are we but those who have lost their wings? We are in between, you see. We might ask for no other distinction than that.”

Platon stood, his movements far more powerful and athletic than most other men his age. He glanced down at Crowley again, and his eyes met Crowley’s without doubt or hesitation. “Thank you for the entertainment and inspiration. As for the one you love so ardently--don’t frown, you’re horrifically obvious--perhaps you might take some comfort in the resistance? Try to find some joy in loving godly beauty from afar, for to indulge may be to suffer madness of the _dangerous_ sort.”

Platon tottered away, scrolls and stylus in hand and muttering under his breath. Crowley watched him go, feeling, despite himself, freer than he had in the last 300 years.

  1. Not that one could even get to Heaven like that. There were plenty of little pockets where the dimensions were closest together, and Angels tended to come and go through those. Very tall buildings did seem to be their style, though. It was only a matter of time before somebody Up There got funny ideas about architecture.
  2. Crawly’s name in Greek tended to mean something along the lines of “Little Sneaking/Creeping Thing,” and while this certainly would’ve been flattering for a demon’s reputation in Hell, he found he didn’t care for having such a reputation among the humans. For obvious reasons, it was rather difficult for humans to trust a person known for creeping and sneaking.
  3. In fact, the tree seemed rather irritated by all the noise.
  4. The last time Crowley had seen Aziraphale was in Egypt a few centuries prior. He had invited Crowley into his home for a drink. However, hours later, when Crowley had seen Aziraphale’s papyrus collection and mentioned his own fascination with expressing emotion and affection through language, Aziraphale went brusque and nervous and nearly marched him out the door.




	3. The Ruba'iyat by Omar Khayyam (~1100 A.D.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley travels to Persia and discusses love and wine with a new acquaintance.

_24  
Whoever set up earth and the wheel of the firmament,  
Branded so many hearts with sorrow,  
Many a ruby lip and musk-scented tress  
He put on this earth and in this coffer of dust._

_25  
If the firmament were in my hand as in God’s,  
I would have razed it from the midst:  
I would have made another firmament such that  
The free of heart might easily attain their desire._

Crowley sighed and sipped his wine,1 hidden under the comfort of darkness and open air. The nearby town had been through the wringer lately, and he tried very hard to reassure himself that the recent invasions were due to no fault of his own. He spared a moment to be grateful that it was him, and not Aziraphale, who’d taken the trip to Persia. The Seljuks were capable warriors, and due to their capability, the local farmlands had been desecrated a few too many times in the last several decades. The townspeople had finally submitted, half-starved as they were, the Seljuk religion had been enforced with extreme prejudice, and Crowley was hard-pressed to find a single decent cup of wine anywhere.2

The Arrangement with Aziraphale had been recently implemented, and Crowley found himself strangely lonelier for it.3 They’d met up about 50 years ago, to establish some ground rules for the upcoming Persia trip and the blessings Crowley would be doing there alongside his Demonic assignments.4 Crowley had been ecstatic to spend some time with his “enemy” before they parted ways again for a while, but unfortunately, all Aziraphale had talked about was how easy it would be for it all to come crashing down around them, how all it would take is a single slip of the tongue to ruin everything. 

Aziraphale was right, anyway, Crowley thought as he settled back into the Persian dirt. Close to 1500 years had passed since that day outside Athens, and Crowley had begun to realize that words might get a human killed if they weren't very, very careful. Both he and Aziraphale had seen it hundreds of times. Memories flew through his mind, memories of the philosophers who said too much and were lost to history, of the teachers whose words were twisted and remade to suit some outside agenda, of the innocents whose messages of love and forgiveness and hope were crushed under the opinions of a deceitful community. It was rather a lot, if he was being honest. 

The field he sat in was certainly of the dustier sort, but the crunchy earth beneath him would at the very least do a decent job of alerting him to passers-by who might be less inclined toward alcohol. No sooner had he thought this than he heard the tell-tale sound of approaching footsteps, and he was immediately thankful that his rudimentary surveillance tactic had actually worked. He stashed the clay mug of wine in the folds of his robe and attempted to affect as nonchalant a position as one could when one had recently imbibed a significant amount of alcohol. To his surprise, instead of continuing on their merry way, the person paused in their walk and approached him. 

The sour, fruity scent of wine hit Crowley’s nose so strongly that he feared he might have spilled some of it on himself, but the smell grew ever stronger as the person took a seat beside him. Crowley’s eyes watered. The person Crowley could see vaguely through his teary eyes was a stately-looking man whose bright red turban and purple robes flashed against the night sky. Despite the clear scent evidence that the man had been drinking heavily, perhaps even more heavily than Crowley, he sat firmly upright, thoughtful and alert. 

“There is no need to hide the wine from me, brother,” the man said. His voice was measured and calm, and Crowley got the impression that he was talking about more than just the wine. 

“Yeah, well, not everybody likes to see this stuff around here. Where’d you even find yours? Clearly you’ve had plenty. Not that that’s a bad thing, I mean, pot calling the kettle, you know.5 But I had to--um. Nevermind. It just took a while to get some, is all.” Crowley cursed the alcohol for loosening his tongue so proficiently. Honestly, it was a wonder he’d never said anything _incriminating_ while he and Aziraphale were in their cups together. 

The man laughed, a full-throated thing that immediately put Crowley at ease. “One needs only know where to look and who to ask. There is always more wine, brother. Without it, the world would cease to be.” The man laughed again, caught in a joke that only he understood. “Now, where is your wine?”

Crowley stared at him and slowly revealed the earthen cup from where he’d hidden it. The man nodded sagely, and his face returned to its calm and suspiciously sober state. Then, with great ceremony, he produced a wine cup made from a dried gourd from the elaborate folds at the top of his turban.6

A startled laugh burst out of Crowley at the absurdity of it all, and he realized that it had been the first in a long while. The man’s solemn expression dropped at once, and he unleashed a brilliant, toothy smile upon Crowley that stood out against the darkness of the night. Crowley laughed harder. “So then, now that the wine has been settled,” the man paused and waited for Crowley to regain himself before continuing. “What have you to drink about, brother? Is it God, or perhaps a lover, that troubles you so?”

“Ngk, well, bit of both, really,” Crowley sputtered, very drunk and extremely caught out. “Thinkin’ about risks. What’s worth it and what’s not. Dangers of sayin’ the wrong thing. Wanting the wrong thing.” 

The man nodded. “It seems you have some arguments with the Law, then. I am much the same. Why must God put such pleasures in the world, promise us things of beauty when we reach the afterlife, only to revoke them when we might dare to sample them while on Earth? Truly, it is a mystery. But wine is better than asking questions sometimes, is it not?” 

“Ha! I’ll drink to that,” Crowley said, and did. “Honestly, ‘f it were up to me, I’d give everybody the chance to make their own choices. Drink if you want, be with who you want, all that rot. What’s the point of makin’ somethin’ beautiful if nobody gets to look at it, right?” 

Crowley laid back in the dirt and gazed up at the stars, determined to remember at least one _something beautiful._ He nearly jumped when the man leaned back and laid beside him, but the company was painfully welcome. They rested in companionable silence for several minutes, long enough that Crowley began to wonder if the man had fallen asleep. Eventually, though, the man’s voice cut through the darkness.

“We wait to experience beauty in the hopes that the beauty at the end will be unparalleled, that our reward will far outstrip the pain of staying away from that which we love so dearly. As for myself, I prefer to remain true to the wine of earth, my ever-constant friend and companion, instead of the dream of an eventual life filled with perfect wine. However,” he paused meaningfully, “I know that some things are worth waiting for after all. And barring shifting the firmament and creating the world anew, that bit of hope may be the best thing this world ever has to offer. That and poetry. Always poetry.”

Crowley gulped, throat suddenly very dry, and reached out a hand for his cup. He shifted up enough to bring it to his mouth without spilling, and he saw that the man had fallen asleep, actually this time, with a smile on his face. His wine gourd rested on his chest, rising and falling with the motion of his breath.

“Poetry?” Crowley whispered.

  1. Miracled wine never quite tasted right, but at this point, Crowley would take what he could get. 
  2. In addition to pillaging crops, including grapes, in their attempts to put all of Persia _under new management,_ the Seljuks were staunch proponents of abstinence from alcohol of any kind. Honestly, it was prime ground for ethereal influence, all those unhappily not-drunk people in one place. 
  3. Living on a separate continent from Aziraphale for the first time in centuries probably had a rather large part in that, to be fair. Wasn’t The Arrangement supposed to give them a reason to be around each other more often? 
  4. At the time, both assignments were estimated to only take a few months, but humans had an incredible knack for complicating things, and Crowley’d been stuck in Persia for a number of decades at this point. Rather a rocky start for the Arrangement overall, but at least Hell had been satisfied with his numerous forged reports, as usual, and Aziraphale could be comfortable and safe on that dreary island they both loved, with Heaven none the wiser. 
  5. Pots and kettles, much like lead balloons, had existed vaguely in Divine and Infernal conceptual awareness long before their actual invention. The pot had been invented quite a while ago, though electric and stove-heated kettles were a ways off yet. This bothered Crowley not one whit, of course. 
  6. This, Crowley realized, might have had something to do with the man’s impeccable posture. 




	4. There Is A Gentle Thought by Dante Alighieri (1294 A.D.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence, Italy brings new ideas and a new language to a very, very old idea, and Crowley shares a drink with a poet for the ages.

_There is a gentle thought that often springs  
to life in me, because it speaks of you.  
Its reasoning about love’s so sweet and true,  
the heart is conquered, and accepts these things.  
‘Who is this’ the mind enquires of the heart,  
‘who comes here to seduce our intellect?  
Is his power so great we must reject  
every other intellectual art?  
The heart replies ‘O, meditative mind  
this is love’s messenger and newly sent  
to bring me all Love’s words and desires.  
His life, and all the strength that he can find,  
from her sweet eyes are mercifully lent,  
who feels compassion for our inner fires.’_

Western Rome had fallen almost a thousand years ago, and still the world remained yoked to the Roman language. It would have been funny if it weren’t so frustrating, especially because Crowley had _been there_ when Rome was operating, and he could assure any of the pompous folks hanging around Italy that Roman Latin was most assuredly _not_ the fancy elitist language they seemed to think it was. Local dialects, in contrast to the stuffy new Latin, were fun and spirited and romantic. They lent themselves to poetry like nothing had before, all those sweeping vowels and evocative cadences. Latin was fine, a decent language, certainly more intuitive than some other languages he’d spoken or read in the past, 1 but the inherent rebellion of Catholic intellectuals composing verse in a _commoner’s language_ brought a little spark of joy to Crowley’s serpent heart. Aziraphale would love it too, he was sure. The angel was always so fond of human ingenuity.

Poetry itself was also something Crowley had discovered that Aziraphale liked. Upon his long-awaited return from Persia, Crowley’d presented Aziraphale with a slim little volume2 of Persian poetry he’d discussed into existence with a certain friend of his. He’d passed it off as a souvenir, a don’t-bother-to-thank-me tchotchke,3 but the look on Aziraphale’s face as he’d caressed the pages was something Crowley knew he would dream about for the rest of his life. Thus began Crowley’s own obsession with tracking down poems to share with Aziraphale, finding poets whose words reminded him of Aziraphale, and discovering new forays into language that would cause Aziraphale to laugh or blush or-- _please, just once_ \--look at Crowley the way he’d looked at that book of Persian poetry. 

Which was, of course, one of the reasons Crowley found himself in Florence, listening to a fast-talking man argue the importance of freedom from Papal rule.4 The man, Durante, was young and angry and gestured vehemently with his hands while he spoke, and Crowley liked him immensely. He liked him more for his unapologetic use of the Tuscan dialect, and the most for his love of poetry. 

“These men deserve to be punished. I would see them driven from Florence, Antonio,”5 Durante said, and his mouth curled into a knot of distaste. “I would write for months, years, _decades_ of their treachery and remain replete with reasons to fault them further.” 

As much as he loved drama, Crowley would be lying if he said that he found human politics particularly engaging. Especially because he’d been around long enough to know that the problems faced by older humans cycle back around every few decades or so to plague the younger humans in exactly the same way.6 However, he’d also be lying if he said he didn’t have an important ulterior motive for braving Durante’s political passions, and so, with great effort, he continued to pay attention. 

“You are indifferent to the efforts of my countrymen, it would seem,” Durante announced suddenly, and Crowley’s head snapped up from where he’d been hiding in his wine. “Or perhaps you are like me, consumed by a greater purpose than lambasting the Ghibellines’ fat faces.”

Crowley, who had not as yet heard Durante speak of anything other than _the Ghibellines’ fat faces,_ remembered at once his reason for seeking the man out in the first place. “Right, a greater purpose, yeah, something like that. Actually, I have this, ah, _friend,_ you see, and they like poetry, and I was wondering if you might be willing to--”

“Aha,” said Durante. He rubbed the end of his long, straight nose, and his eyes fixed on something beyond Crowley’s shoulder. “You wish to woo a lady with your words, do you? Here I am, speaking nonsense about the warfare between imbeciles, when you had come to be guided toward Love himself.” 

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, choked on nothing, and hoped that Durante would ascertain his meaning anyway. His thoughts were almost always of Aziraphale nowadays, if he was honest, but his mind still recoiled a bit when the nature of those thoughts was spelled out for him.

Durante laughed into his cup of wine. “Yes, I know that particular expression very well. My own dear love has arrested my words in much the same way.” 

Crowley grumbled. Given that Durante was an eminent poet, already renowned amongst his countrymen, and that he’d hardly shut his mouth for two whole minutes since they’d first started talking, he highly doubted that the man’s words were hurting too much from his love troubles. “Yeah, your wife seems nice. Very patient.” 

For once, Durante seemed struck silent. He fiddled with the edge of his tunic, and his eyes were loath to settle on any one thing for more than a second or two. Realization dawned.

“It’s not your wife, the one you love.” A wave of upset rolled through Crowley on behalf of the black-eyed woman he’d met earlier that evening. He wondered if she knew.

“No. She is not.” Durante sighed. When he finally looked back at Crowley, his gaze was dark with sorrow. “I regret the way things have been for all of us, though my wife is wonderful, as you say. I am not unhappy with her, nor she with me. My love, however... I have barely spoken a few words to her in all our years, and yet I love her beyond reason. She has taken my every waking thought and made my heart her own, and I am helpless but to stand and watch. When we met, I was no more than a child, but I have never ceased to adore her. She is an angel among demons, and though I know we shall never be, my mind is never more at peace than it is when I think of her.”

“How do you know you love her if you never speak to her?” Crowley interjected, aware that if he allowed Durante to keep on, he would be there all night. 

“Ah, you see the truth of it! She is so perfect that were I to speak to her for more than a moment, perfection might escape from my grasp. There is no truer beauty than that of an angel to the restless human heart, and if she were tangible, if she were to fall within my reach--no, it would not do. For one such as I, the only recourse is to love her unto the grave, and speak no word of it to anyone but my own self. She is compassionate in her silence, as she knows this to be true.”

Crowley straightened up from where he had been leaning against the wall, a strange anger pulsing in his veins. “You don’t know anything about love then. Love has nothing to do with perfection, with the unattainable ideal. I’ve listened to this Greek guy I knew talk for six hours about it once, and I still think he, and everybody else who listened to him, had it wrong. Love is about _choice,_ about standing side by side and sharing something beautiful with somebody you care about, somebody who lights up your brain when you talk to them, somebody you work every day to get to know a little more.” 

He took a fortifying swig of his wine. This next part would hurt, he knew, but he couldn’t keep the words off of his tongue.

“What does it matter if the person you love’s an _angel_ or not? If you can’t see the flaws in them and love them just as much as before, if you can’t fight with them and get upset and think they’re wrong sometimes and still want to see them again as soon as possible, want to show them off to everyone as the best thing in your life, then what’s the point? If it were me, if I knew I could make them happy, I’d find a way to tell them all the time. To make them smile. Keeping it all to yourself like that, it’s just. Hopeless.”

Durante’s expression was thunderous. “You would have me shirk my responsibilities, deny my family, uproot my life, all for a gamble? To choose to love my Beatrice before the eyes of all the world, even to both of our detriments? What harm do I cause by loving in silence, truly? Whatever it may be, I assure you, it would be less than I would cause by abusing the way of the world.”

Crowley started to argue, but Durante held up a silencing hand. For once, surprisingly, Crowley was compelled to obey.

“What of Beatrice, Antonio? What would be said of her if I were to risk spending time with her, _getting to know her,_ without even the slightest possibility that we might be together before the eyes of the Church? At best, her reputation would be stained, and at worst, she might be made a pariah, all due to my own selfishness. If she cared not for me and I dared to pursue my love against all better judgement, then the outcome would have destroyed us both, for no benefit at all. What would you have me do, Antonio?”

The room fell still. Crowley tried to breathe. He knew this, he _knew._ Why did it still hurt so much? “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just. Sometimes it feels like there’s so much _feeling._ And I think, maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard, you know? Like, maybe it could be something easy.” The wine cup blurred in his vision. He refused to cry. “We get so close sometimes. I forget there’s a reason why...why we haven’t.”

Suddenly, Durante’s steady hand grasped Crowley’s shoulder. He was too tired to be shocked, too burnt out to be angry, too caught up in it all to shake him off. They stood for a moment, two beings on the wrong side of romance. Crowley thought it was almost profound, but given the context, he could find it nothing more than depressing.7

“If it is any consolation, my friend, I have written of my love often. When the pain becomes too great, or when the passion proves too heavy to carry, I transform it into verse. Though declarations may not be spoken between my love and I, I have made use of quieter words. Perhaps you would benefit from the same.” Durante smiled, all semblance of his former vitriol forgotten, and Crowley couldn’t help the tiny, relieved quirk of his own lips. “You said you had come for poetry, and poetry you shall have. The conflict of heart and mind need not be so great a conflict after all! And love like yours--it is not so different from my own, I think.”

Crowley’s eyes flicked up to meet Durante’s, hope kindling deep in his gut. “Really? You’ll help me?”

Durante released Crowley’s arm in favor of fluttering his hands about as he spoke, and it was truly as if a lamp had been lit within the man. “Of course! In fact, all this talk has me feeling rather inspired.”

_So that’s all it takes, then? Bare your soul and out comes poetry?_

Crowley went to the window and looked out over the city. Night had fallen quietly over the streets of Florence, and the stars winked in their ever-burning rhythm above the firelit houses and cathedrals and palaces. All the humans and their creations, their wars and politics and love and anger, every bit of it was nestled under the breadth of the sky. Somewhere out there, Aziraphale was living. Laughing. He was probably enjoying his life among the humans, completely unaware of the demon who loved him. _Ugh._ Crowley knew he was useless like this, pining away from afar, never daring to say a word, having too many soppy, un-demonic thoughts. He turned away from the view and saw Durante, now seated at his corner desk and scratching away with a quill on parchment. 

_Well,_ he thought. _It’s a start._

  1. Hebrew was a particular favorite of his as far as speaking, but reading it was an exercise in futility. Why the humans had decided that the omission of vowels was a good method of shorthand continued to baffle him. Centuries later, people still couldn’t decide how some of those words were originally pronounced. 
  2. _Books._ Books were truly a remarkable invention, requiring the work of a village to make just one. Aziraphale had been obsessed since the first time he’d clapped eyes on a book, which had been somewhere in the realm of 2,000 years ago. Crowley made a point of adding to Aziraphale’s collection every time he got a chance. 
  3. Crowley had some Hell-bred reservations about receiving gratitude in the first place, so the less Aziraphale suspected about how involved Crowley’d been with the poems, the better. 
  4. The entire debate between obedience and dissent was rather old news to Crowley, considering his own permanently-Rebelled status. 
  5. _Antonio,_ or _Anthony,_ had been as much a concession to aesthetics as it had to the blossoming human custom of surnames. There were only so many times humans could reuse the same names without getting confused, and Crowley had to admit that his new name had a nice ring to it. 
  6. Feudalism certainly fell into this category, alongside the formation of ideological factions and the setup of colonies, for a start. Every time humans tried to distinguish themselves from other humans, tragedy would invariably strike. It was almost boring in its efficiency. He wrote memos to Hell in advance sometimes, taking credit for the nonsense whenever he could see it brewing. 
  7. And cliché. And honestly, he’d just come to hear about poetry, for hell’s sake. 




	5. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne (1611)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley travels to the English countryside to meet a man he thinks might be able to help him.

_As virtuous men pass mildly away,  
And whisper to their souls to go,  
Whilst some of their sad friends do say  
The breath goes now, and some say, No:_

_So let us melt, and make no noise,  
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;  
'Twere profanation of our joys  
To tell the laity our love._

_Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,  
Men reckon what it did, and meant;  
But trepidation of the spheres,  
Though greater far, is innocent._

_Dull sublunary lovers' love  
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit  
Absence, because it doth remove  
Those things which elemented it._

_But we by a love so much refined,  
That our selves know not what it is,  
Inter-assured of the mind,  
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss._

_Our two souls therefore, which are one,  
Though I must go, endure not yet  
A breach, but an expansion,  
Like gold to airy thinness beat._

_If they be two, they are two so  
As stiff twin compasses are two;  
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show  
To move, but doth, if the other do._

_And though it in the center sit,  
Yet when the other far doth roam,  
It leans and hearkens after it,  
And grows erect, as that comes home._

_Such wilt thou be to me, who must_  
_Like th' other foot, obliquely run;  
Thy firmness makes my circle just,  
And makes me end where I begun. _

More centuries passed Crowley by, trailing off and away like smoke from a candle. Three hundred years after Durante, or _Dante_ as the public knew him, had written his magnum opus, 1 and two hundred years after the worst century of all the centuries thus far 2 had come to an end, Crowley was back in England. Best of all, he was back in the near vicinity of his angel. They’d both been careful about keeping their distance, however, and with the exception of the occasional play or late-night drinking session, they didn’t often occupy the same space for long. Even so, with every exchange of barbs, with every shared laugh, with every passing glance, Crowley fell further into the trap called love.

It helped to write, he found, just as Durante had recommended all those years before, and the more Aziraphale took it upon himself to accumulate books, the more Crowley found himself aspiring to impress the angel with words of his own. However, he was by no means confident3 enough to put pen to paper, so to speak, in any sort of personal, public fashion. His first forays into the literary world were disastrous to say the very least,4 but Crowley was a master of the long game. He only needed to practice. 

And so it was that he found himself darkening the doorways or gardens or settees of all the best poets he could find, certain that every bit of guidance they might give him would be a step closer to making something decent out of all his conflicting emotions. He started asking Aziraphale for his literary preferences when they met up on business every few years, and imagined that someday in the not-so-distant future, Aziraphale might look fondly at something _Crowley_ had written, and _know,_ and be happy about the knowing. It was a ridiculous idea, but he couldn’t help the feeling it sent through his corporation, especially during those long years between meetings.5

At any rate, Crowley had a very important mission on his hands. He’d recently managed, through no small amount of subterfuge and Demonic intervention, to secure an invitation to the simple country home of one John Donne, whose reputation had begun to speak for itself in literary circles around England. That is not to say that he had a particularly _positive_ reputation, but any man willing to question authority and yammer on about paradoxes was alright in Crowley’s book. 

The first thing Crowley noticed upon approaching the house was the children. Running, yelling, laughing, playing, climbing trees--there had to be at least six of them, all competing to be the loudest of the bunch. Crowley nodded to them as he made his way up the winding garden path and tamped down on the very undemonic urge to smile. Through the small window at the front of the house, he could see a rosy-cheeked and extremely pregnant woman seated before a spinning wheel. The whole place glowed of family and contentment, though the crumbling exterior of the house hinted at a less-than-comfortable life behind the happy faces. 

“Like watching a den of rabbits, is it not, sir?” 

Crowley started at the sudden speech and turned to find a man resting against the garden fence to his left. He was fashionably groomed and upright, despite the cheap fabric of his clothing. “You could say that.”

“Indeed, sir, and you’ll find that I have said so, sir. What brings you to my home on this day?” The man stroked his pointed beard contemplatively, and Crowley almost wished he had kept his own, just for the sake of outdoing him.6

“Don’t call me that. Not much of a ‘sir,’ me. The name’s Crowley.” 

The man clapped his hands once, muted shock written over his face.7

“Y’know, the person who’s been sending you those letters about poetry? We had agreed to meet today, if I’m not mistaken. You are Mr. Donne?”

“Oh yes, of course, si--Mr. Crowley.” The man, John Donne, bowed his head in contrition, and he looked as if he were mentally counting the days since their last correspondence. “In the rush of these past weeks, I had quite forgotten. I am to leave for France tomorrow night, you see, Mr. Crowley, and I have been working to prepare the household for my absence. Please forgive me for the oversight.”

Crowley tilted his head, taking in Donne’s relaxed position against the fence. “You don’t seem in much of a hurry. Packing with your eyes then, Mr. Donne?”

Donne flashed him a grin. “Yes, well, every man knows that the affairs of the mind can be as difficult to put in order as those of one’s home. Look at what I have, Mr. Crowley, and tell me that you would not also find it painful to leave.”

Struck by the sudden sentimentality in Donne’s eyes, Crowley looked. Laughing children, smiling wife, well-loved home. Simple pleasures, but enough to lead a happy life. “I can tell you’ll be missed.”

Donne laughed, a surprisingly deep, rumbling thing, and Crowley felt he’d failed to grasp some sort of point. “A man cannot be missed by that which he carries with him, Mr. Crowley. We may be apart, and the distance might be painful, but bonds are not broken by space.”

Crowley still didn’t understand, and it was starting to grate on him.8 “Come again?”

“You see my wife, there, Mr. Crowley? She is as much a part of me as my hand, and thrice as difficult to sever.” Donne flexed his left hand to demonstrate and smiled down at the sensible gold band on his finger. “In your letters, you seemed particularly interested in the topic of love, love over great distances, over great adversity. Love without hope of fulfilment. Is this not correct, Mr. Crowley?”

_Now, why did he have to go and phrase it like that?_ Crowley thought, with no small amount of bitterness. He scowled ferociously, but nodded all the same.

Donne nodded back to him, a smile of sympathy tugging at his lips. Crowley wanted to sneer, but he held himself in check. This meeting had taken a lot of hard work to arrange, after all. 

“I believe that I might be capable of helping you, Mr. Crowley. My wife and I… We were never meant to be together, you know. I was in service to her uncle, nothing more than an underling. I saw her and loved her more with each moment we shared, but a multitude of wealthy, titled men awaited her father’s approval.” Donne’s eyes went misty. “Still, she chose to love me. We wed in secret because we knew that I could never stand among her suitors. When her father and uncle discovered us, they placed me in prison until the veracity of the marriage had been proven beyond doubt. Even then, they refused to recognize us for years afterward. It is funny now, is it not, Mr. Crowley? It is hard to imagine that there once was a time that we did not know whether we would see one another again. We took vows that knit us into one being, and we can never be parted, even by death or adversity. Distance between us is… a mere stretching of our souls, transcending time and space. Do you see, Mr. Crowley?”

Mrs. Donne left her place at the spinning wheel to tend to a pot over the fire. The children shrieked, caught up in games that only they understood. The trees rustled their branches in the crisp autumn wind. Woodsmoke from the house’s chimney perfumed the clearing with the scent of fire and warmth. It was a home, merry and plain and human. Donne and his love had faced separation, had faced distance, and surfaced whole and happy. They were free, after all their trials were done, to bask in each other’s company and build a life together. Of course staying away for a time would sting, but it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to a love as steady as this one. Wherever one went, the other followed, even if only in spirit. Crowley saw.

“Mr. Donne, do you think you might help me with a poem before you go?”

  1. It was a hilarious set of books about a, shall we say, _imaginative_ interpretation of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Crowley had laughed about it for a good week after he’d first read them, and he’d ensured that they were immediately added to Aziraphale’s collection. The angel swore he preferred the _Paradiso,_ but Crowley knew that he’d enjoyed the petty, epic drama of _Inferno_ more than he let on. 
  2. The 14th Century. Where did he even _begin_ with that one. Bad harvests, Scottish wars of independence, famine, the Black Death, revamped Jewish persecution, the Black Death _again,_ the Hundred Years’ War, peasant revolts… Honestly, anything and everything that could’ve gone wrong _had_ gone wrong. 
  3. Or skilled. 
  4. On one notable occasion in 1580, Crowley had drunkenly regaled a bard in service to the King of England with a very long, very involved poetic description of a recent miracle he’d done on behalf of Aziraphale’s maddening fashion sense. The bard had composed a more coherent version of events involving a lady bedecked in Irish green, the king had shared the poem with the public, the common people had set the poem to _music,_ and Crowley still shuddered whenever he saw anybody with green sleeves. 
  5. Crowley did everything in his power to keep from wallowing in the time they spent apart. Demons, as a rule, were fond of wallowing. However, Crowley doubted that the context for this particular sort of wallowing would be much appreciated by Hell, and wallowing wasn’t really Crowley’s style anyway. 
  6. Almost. Aziraphale had taken one look at it a decade prior and subtly suggested that it did his already-thin face few favors. Crowley had to admit that he was right. 
  7. For a moment, Crowley thought he might have recognized him from a sheep-stealing job he’d influenced years ago or something. His name tended to stick around in gossip, even when he did his best to avoid suspicion. Ironically, for all that time spent lurking in darkness, being a demon did not always lend itself well to being _inconspicuous._
  8. What was it with poets and their metaphors? Honestly. 




	6. The Violet by Goethe (1785)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries his hand at escaping the pull of love-- and poetry. But something keeps pulling him back.

_Upon the mead a violet stood,_

_Retiring, and of modest mood,_

_In truth, a violet fair._

_Then came a youthful shepherdess,_

_And roam'd with sprightly joyousness,_

_And blithely woo'd_

_With carols sweet the air._

_"Ah!" thought the violet, "had I been_

_For but the smallest moment e'en_

_Nature's most beauteous flower,_

_'Till gather'd by my love, and press'd,_

_When weary, 'gainst her gentle breast,_

_For e'en, for e'en_

_One quarter of an hour!"_

_Alas! alas! the maid drew nigh,_

_The violet failed to meet her eye,_

_She crush'd the violet sweet._

_It sank and died, yet murmur'd not:_

_"And if I die, oh, happy lot,_

_For her I die,_

_And at her very feet!"_

Germany was a beautiful country, but Crowley could hardly appreciate it. He and Aziraphale were no longer on speaking terms, or so it seemed. He’d taken up the very first and farthest assignment he’d been given in an effort to get away from the carnage he’d inflicted, inadvertent though it may have been. Apparently, there were still a number of things which Aziraphale refused to risk, and taking a little bit of time away from his Heavenly Duties to spend a significant amount of time with Crowley was one of them. Crowley tried to find humour in the irony of having lost all of his forward progress by daring to hope for a single step more. He wasn’t terribly successful. 

In addition to the outright refusal to consider a more prevalent companionship with Crowley, Aziraphale had also been downright prickly when Crowley had asked about poetry. Previously, they had managed rousing discussions about the craft,1 but this time, it had almost been a perfect re-enactment of a particular scene in Egypt millennia before. It was all Crowley could do to collect his coat and hat before he was unceremoniously dumped out onto the street, the angel muttering all sorts of nonsense about “getting late” and “work to be done” and slamming the door in his face. It stung to say the least, and a long, wine-soaked evening later, Crowley had decided to give up on the whole poetry idea altogether. 

Thus, Germany. 

In lieu of spending the _entire_ duration of his assignment moping around and drinking in whatever classy2 salons would permit him entry, Crowley decided to find a place that would be as sparsely-populated as possible where he could while away a few hours. He was determined not to allow any further thoughts of _romance_ to infect his mind. After he’d draped himself over a chaise and allowed himself several long moments of rumination in his dour room at the lodging house, Crowley believed he had thought of the one living thing with which he could spend time without being inundated with goopy emotion: plants. A botanical garden should serve him well, then.

It took him a depressingly long while to find a quiet garden, but once he had, he imagined that he could very well get used to being surrounded by greenery. Beautiful foliage was one of the few pleasant things he remembered from the first moments he’d spent on Earth,3 and it almost surprised him how relaxing it still was when he remembered to appreciate it. He wandered along manicured pathways and precision-labeled hedgerows, peering down at the tiny, wood-carved signs that declared the names of all of the different plants. Humans had always been good at naming things.

The breeze danced between the blooms, carded through small green patches of tarragon, stirred forget-me-nots and gardenias and heliotropes. Birds chattered in the trees, pleased for the presence of spring and the return to their happy lives after the winter had sent them away. Every direction that Crowley turned, there seemed to be yet another reminder of the very thing he’d traveled so far to escape. A statue of a triumphant angel presided over a glistening stone fountain in the center of the garden. It was simply uncalled for.

He must have gotten a bit more wrapped up in his thoughts than he’d expected because he hadn’t noticed that a human was approaching him until it was too late to make himself scarce.4 Intent on being as inconspicuous as possible, he focused his attention on an unfortunate hydrangea, which began to tremble under the scrutiny. With any luck, the man would pass him by and leave him to his frustration.5

“Good afternoon, sir.”

Crowley bared his teeth at him. “Right.”

“Pardon my intrusion, but you seem particularly taken with that hydrangea. In truth, I am fond of them myself. Might you be an horticulture enthusiast, perhaps? Ah, no. You do not have the look of a gardener. A botanist, then?”

“Are you looking for an answer to your questions, or are you just asking them to amuse yourself?” Crowley hissed. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he’d come to the gardens to be alone with the plants, not interrogated by a misguided amateur sleuth. 

“I had only hoped to chance upon a like-minded sponsor of horticulture, that is all. Forgive me a healthy scientific curiosity. I am Johann von Goethe. Mister…?”

It seemed Crowley wasn’t getting out of this that easily. For all their intelligence, humans had a dreadful time reading the mood. “Crowley. Anthony Crowley. And given that you seem to think that I’ve got nothing better on for the next however long, I guess I’ll bite. No, I’m not into plants.”6

Goethe shook his head decisively. “Mr. Crowley, you might do well to mind your shifting posture while delivering lies, most especially ones so purposeless. There is nothing wrong with indulging a curiosity. I have indulged many myself, and in fact, this garden is the fruit of one such curiosity. The world loves to offer up new entertainments. To shirk them is but a waste of valuable energy.”

Crowley leaned heavily on his over-stylish, snake-headed walking stick and cocked a hip in a way that was decidedly unsuitable for modern public sensibilities. “Unless you have something good to say, I’d like to get back to _minding my posture_ any way I see fit, thanks.”

“I have many good things to say. I had only expected a spot of pleasant conversation from this exchange, and that you refuse to accept such an overture is not of any major consequence to me. I shall take my leave.”

The buttoned-up bravado, the slicing humor, the moderately good-natured holier-than-thou attitude--something about this man appealed to Crowley, and he refused to think on why. “Please, tell me you’re not a poet.”

Goethe sniffed. “I have been informed that my skills with plants are second only to my gifts with a pen. Why do you ask? I was under the impression that you wished to resume your heartaches in privacy.”

Crowley’s unlucky streak would not give any quarter, evidently. “Of course you are. Listen, I don’t know where you got the _heartache_ idea from. I’ve just met enough poets in the past to know the type, alright?”

Unfazed, Goethe stared at Crowley for a long moment. “For the sake of expediency, I am going to be atrociously blunt, for which I can no doubt be excused, given your own unpleasant demeanor thus far.”

The walking stick creaked under the pressure of Crowley’s hand, but he said nothing. What was it about him that made strangers want to pick fights?7

“I posit that you’ve been recently rebuffed.” 

“Or _maybe,_ I just wanted some peace and quiet and not to be accosted by people whose noses are stuck where they don’t belong.” For all the acid he’d intended to imbue his words with, the statement sounded weak even to his own ears. He never was all that good at lying about this sort of thing to the humans. Especially not _this_ human, if the glint in Goethe’s eye was to be believed.

“I understand. You have come here to escape the thought of it. I assume that this has not helped you terribly much? One can only get so much catharsis from thundering about the gardens, as you have been.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care to spend my time locked up in a set of rooms somewhere with a bottle in my hand.” 

“You fear that you would return to her. If you lost control of your faculties.”

Crowley grunted. Poets and their over-familiar obsession with his feelings could go right Downstairs if he had any say in it.8

“Well, Mr. Crowley, you have found yourself in quite a state, haven’t you? Devoted to a lovely lady’s wishes even through harm to yourself.” 

“What, you want me to storm over there and--and _yell_ until the angel decides to love me? Even I know that wouldn’t end well. Better to just let it go, get over it. S’not anybody’s job to pay attention to a person they’re not interested in spending time with. It’s called _respecting boundaries._ ”

Goethe smoothed a hand over his face, deep in thought. “You’re happy to do as she wishes. To lie modestly by as she goes about her days. If she made no note of you, you would be as pleased to love her as ever. Is this correct, Mr. Crowley?”

Crowley rolled his eyes. He knew Goethe couldn’t see them behind his glasses, so it didn’t matter anyway. “You don’t have to be pedantic about it. And anyway, I guess this isn’t the first time the angel’s put me out. One of us has to keep the distance, and the other’s job is to be there when needed. Just stings to be reminded, is all. Now would you do me a favor and start talking about plants or something instead of being so _atrociously blunt?_ ”

Somehow, Crowley’s bluster had worn most of the way off over the course of the conversation, and he didn’t even feel like making the effort to keep up his frown. 

“Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Crowley. You’d asked at the start of this if I were a poet, and it seems that you have provided me with a certain amount of inspiration. Would you mind terribly if I were to provide you with a poem related to your troubles in a day or two?”

Crowley weighed his options. He’d sworn off the whole _poetry_ debacle a few days prior, but honestly what difference did it make if he were to continue? It wasn’t as if he ever intended to _tell_ Aziraphale about his little escapades with verse. Aside from that, the poems truly had been helping him to manage his annoying pining situation. 

Having made up his mind, Crowley fixed Goethe with a half-hearted glare and a shrug. “I guess not. Beats talking about _flowers._ ”

  1. Though Crowley was careful not to give away too many details of his own activities in the poetic sphere. The poems he’d cooked up with various writers in recent centuries were all rather… _obvious_ in their meaning, and Crowley couldn’t risk Aziraphale cottoning on.
  2. Or sleazy. He wasn’t picky.
  3. That and the angel, but of course Crowley was in no mood to think about him at the moment.
  4. Wasting a miracle to avoid being seen by one human, who was otherwise unaware of his Demonic nature no less, would have been a bit much even for Crowley. That is, if he had even remembered he was capable of such a thing to begin with.
  5. Luck had rarely been on Crowley’s side before, and it would certainly not start now.
  6. This last bit was at least partially a lie, but he couldn’t be bothered to feel bad about it.
  7. Of course, Crowley was responsible in no small part for the humans’ vitriol most of the time. Amazingly, when one does one’s best to appear brusque and unapproachable, or even downright rude, one must also reap what one has sown, so to speak.
  8. He did have something of a say in it. The fact that the poets Crowley’d encountered continued vastly unhindered by his influence was indicative of how little he truly thought to indulge his Demonic capabilities, at least as far as individual humans were concerned. If any poet met a less-than-pleasant fate in the afterlife, it wasn’t by Crowley’s hand.




	7. Interlude: The Bookshop (1800)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude of Aziraphale, chocolates, and realizations.

Aziraphale hummed merrily to himself as he set books onto shelves, unconcerned by any of the foot traffic rushing by outside. He still had a few more hours before he thought he might open the shop, and he was happy to keep customers waiting while he enjoyed some quiet moments.1 There was an unprecedented sense of freedom, he found, in having secured a place apart from the rush of the world, from the shifting of nations or the whims of his head office. The bookshop was his, come what may, and the security it brought was liberating in much the same way as unfolding his wings for a stretch often was. The difference lie in the fact that this particular refuge was one he could indulge whenever he wished, and nobody could reprimand him for it. The last of the stack of books he’d been shelving slotted into place with a satisfying  _ thunk.  _ A smile melted onto his face like butter on a fresh croissant. 

Just yesterday, he’d almost lost the chance to have this, but Gabriel had decided that the Earth was better off with Aziraphale on it and left him to his shop with not much fuss. Crowley’d popped by to celebrate afterward, when the angels had gone away and the shop was secure. The demon had presented Aziraphale with a box of delectable chocolates and a loosely-bound collection of poems fresh from the pens of notable modern writers, both of which were devoured posthaste. It had been a spectacular day, and Aziraphale had to admit that Crowley’s presence was a large part of the reason. They’d drank together in the back room of the shop, and Crowley had taken up residence on the sofa2 as he regaled him with tales of what he’d been doing in the seven years since they’d met in Paris. It was dangerous. Aziraphale’s bosses had only just returned to Heaven, and if they returned to the shop on some whim and caught him with Crowley, there was no knowing what the angels might do to them. Still, resisting Crowley was becoming an exercise in painful futility, and Aziraphale found himself clutching recklessly at any extra seconds he could spare. He cared more for his  hereditary enemy than he ever should have, and the longer they spent together, the less Aziraphale wanted to let Crowley leave.

However, there was still a mystery that haunted Aziraphale. While he knew that he cared for Crowley, he had never been able to ascertain whether Crowley felt the same for him. Angels, Aziraphale included, were capable of sensing love when they put their minds to it, but however hard he tried, he never caught even the slightest whiff of it from Crowley. Over the years, he’d formulated a number of ideas about why this might be, but none of them quite managed to tick all the appropriate boxes. It was as frustrating as it was confusing, and Aziraphale might have given in were it not for the one hint that continued to surface, the one piece of the puzzle he never quite managed to crack: the Special Poems.

The Special Poems had not always been poems, necessarily. The first time it occurred, he had been reading a section of a philosophical treatise by Plato, millennia before. Through the unfamiliar strokes of a philosopher’s stylus, behind the name of a Greek stranger, Aziraphale had felt something reach out to him. It was love, little hints of it, calling him by name as it pleaded with him to listen to what it had to say. He’d dismissed it as a fluke of his imagination. Humans often imbued their work with a certain amount of love, especially in their work with words, so Aziraphale enjoyed the process of reading all the more for the chance to feel the distinctive versions of it that each author displayed in their writing.3 It couldn’t have been meant for him in particular. With his wishful thinking dispatched, he’d proceeded to forget about it entirely.

The first Special Poems that were actual  _ poems _ had appeared ages after that work by Plato, written into a little book of Persian poetry which Crowley had handed over to him with little fanfare. At first, Aziraphale had taken the gift for nothing more than a rare, but appreciated, gesture of camaraderie. He had been the recipient of several gifts of that sort from Crowley before, so he’d not known what was coming until he’d opened it and begun to read. Most of the poems in the little book had been straightforward, if odd, expressions of doubt surrounding the tenets of the local religion, with a significant emphasis on the virtues of wine. Two of them, however, rang in his mind as clearly as if they’d been spoken into his ear. They contained a longing more tangible than any he’d sensed before, and a sense of devotion and justice and bitterness served as a counterpoint to a strange love he’d felt only once, 1500 years before. Aziraphale’s name was written into every word of those two poems. He couldn’t have helped the awestruck expression that had stolen over his face. Crowley had seemed oddly quiet for the rest of the evening, but Aziraphale could barely think to say a word. Someone loved him.

The next several hundred years brought Crowley into his life at a far greater frequency than ever before, and every few visits, Crowley presented him with a poem or two. Aziraphale had pressed a hand over his heart each time, hoping to experience that rush, that sense of being utterly _known_ , but each time, he was disappointed. It seemed that Crowley had personally curated the poems he showed Aziraphale, but none had possessed that certain sense of love. It was a nonsense idea, anyway, for whichever person had originally penned those Persian verses,4 if they were mortal, had long since passed away. It wasn’t until the late thirteenth century that another Special Poem had surfaced. 

It simply couldn’t be. As much as Aziraphale had enjoyed Dante’s work, there was certainly no affection between Aziraphale and the man himself, much less the steadfast love that the poem sent into his angelic soul. The poem itself had apparently been part of a collection written about Dante’s own lover, but the streams of love that danced through the other poems in the collection were in no way congruent to the rushing, heart-wrenching tide of the Special One. Aside from that, the discovery was bittersweet for another reason. Regardless of whoever had written the Special Poem, or whoever had commissioned Dante to write it, Aziraphale realized that he would not be satisfied to spend his life with anyone except, perhaps, Crowley. Human lives were so fleeting, so transient, and the idea of the Special Poems would never satisfy him as much as a single evening with his demon. He had been determined to let the matter rest.

However, it was as if the floodgates had been opened then, and Aziraphale discovered a new Special Poem every other decade or so. He smiled when he heard a group of revelers singing Greensleeves, he swooned when he came across Special Poems that had been written in the language of the Scots, he fluttered when Crowley sent him a freshly-calligraphed copy of a poem by John Donne, he sighed when Crowley pressed a neatly-printed poem about a violet into his hands at a restaurant in Paris. The authors of the poems were as disparate as could be. None of their other works spoke his name, called to him, as the Special Poems did. The love felt familiar, safe, warm, melancholy, and at times frustrated, but every ounce of it was sincere. Though the poets’ various distinctive marks were built into the words, he knew that they were acting as mere vessels for the thoughts of a person entirely other. A person who loved  _ Aziraphale.  _

Aziraphale sighed and took a seat at his desk, setting the books aside for a moment while he worked to solve the puzzle. While allowing himself to ruminate on the identity of his admirer was often a painful event and best left avoided, he didn’t know how much longer he could take this. He thought of Crowley, so patient with him and always waiting to share small kindnesses, to laugh with him, to find him in the darkest days. Aziraphale had wanted no-one else for decades at this point, so whoever the poet was, he could never stand a chance against his demon. But who was the poet? Aziraphale wanted the chance to know, even if he would still choose Crowley. If Crowley wanted him, if they would not be destroyed for being together openly, Aziraphale would choose his demon, again and again, until the end of the world. He should at least find the poet and give them an apology.

“Right,” he said, and placed spectacles on the bridge of his nose. He was resolved to settle this, once and for all. The circumstances were nigh unbelievable, and the Special Poems never ceased to raise more questions. Who would love  _ him?  _ Not to mention the fact that whoever had been loving him had been doing so for a number of millennia if the poems were to be believed. That was entirely ridiculous of course, because the only other person who had been on Earth through all that time was--

Aziraphale gasped and rushed to the secluded shelf in the very back where he’d placed the Special Poems.  _ Could it really be that simple?  _ One by one, he drew them from the shelf and read over the words, and the love shone out at him from every line. This love had transcended language, location, distance, culture, and somehow always found a way to return to him. It was warm, almost fiery in its pure ardor, but would never seek to harm him. It coiled around him, it spoke his name, it wished so desperately to hold him close, and it was  _ Crowley’s. _

“Oh, my dear. How could I not have seen it?” Aziraphale whispered, stroking reverently over a poem about a garden Crowley’d given him just the day prior. It had been tucked away amid all the innocuous ones, hidden behind a box of chocolates and a put-upon surliness that Aziraphale knew was nothing more than a front. The poem was sad, dark even, and Crowley’s love was there on the page as plain as day. The poet whose name graced the paper was barely present in the piece at all, only showing through in the poem’s superficial construction. 

Had Crowley been using human poets as vessels for his love? If Aziraphale couldn’t sense a demon’s love but could easily sense a human’s, then a human Crowley had inspired would have, for just a moment, been capable of broadcasting his feelings across the page. The effect would be a revelation, like a beam of white light hitting a prism and becoming a glowing wave of technicolor on the other side. It was the only explanation that made sense, the only reason this could be. Crowley held the love within him, the poet held a pen, and Aziraphale could feel him, finally, where he never had before.

Aziraphale needed a plan. Somehow, he had to make his knowledge known to Crowley, to show him that for all his Heaven-and-Hell-mandated distance, he felt much the same. If only he could build up the courage to ask him, all of their struggles would fade, less of a torture and more of an ache. 

He settled the Special Poems back into their places of honor, caressing each of them as gently as he could. It might take him some time to work out a way to tell Crowley, but until then, he’d be able to take solace in the poems more than ever before.

  1. He was happy to keep customers waiting for any reason whatsoever, but the quiet was nonetheless a bonus incentive. 
  2. This sofa would forever be designated as _Crowley’s sofa_ from this moment on. Funny how rapidly Crowley had managed to claim a place for himself in Aziraphale’s home. 
  3. The author’s love faded into the background in newer editions, the printers’ or scribes’ own emotions becoming tangled into the words with each printing. The value of Aziraphale’s first editions lie far beyond the material. 
  4. The author of the poems was allegedly Omar Khayyam, but given that Aziraphale had never met the man or even been to Persia and that the themes of them were not quite as congruent with the rest of the poems, Aziraphale had his doubts. 




	8. The Romantics (1821)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley spends a fateful afternoon with some colorful people, asks a question, and gets a painful answer. (Angst ahoy for this one. Sorry in advance ^^")

“Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, and a man whose words are censured by the Church has no claim to freedom at all! He is no better than a cog in the clergy’s pocket watch, brought into the light, only rarely, to fulfill his role in silence and then secreted away afterward, with no role to pursue but that of enabling a greater machine.”

“Oh, listen to you yammer on, Percy. If you want to talk of freedom, work alongside the warfront that would bring it about. You can achieve a heroic status in your own right, be known far and wide as the savior of the state, and cut yourself loose from your paranoid ramblings about censorship. Nobody can tell you what to say if you’ve a musket in hand.”

“Violence is not the answer, _George._ If the oppressed rise up with violence, the oppressor can rip the rug from beneath them. The mountains of innocent lives that will be lost for little gain… How could you ever advocate for such foolishness?”

“Do not call me George! You’re just upset that nobody would make a statue of your ugly mug like they would for me. True make of a general, after all--you’ve got to look the part.”

“I will boil your guinea hens one day, George. I will.”

“Gentlemen, if you do not sit down right this instant, I shall lock you both in the larder.”

“Of course, _Mrs. Shelley._ You could do much better than Percy, you know. Find someone with a shred of intelligence, a man with some good looks to his name--”

Crowley was going to lose his mind. To be completely honest, it should have been illegal to have more than one poet in the same place, especially not for an extended period of time. Unfortunately for him, he was stuck in a parlor in Pisa with three of them, and they’d all been drinking heavily. He’d been sent to Italy for an assignment and was determined to spend some time clearing his head. Since Aziraphale had gotten the bookshop, he seemed infinitely happier, but also more distant. Crowley spent as much time ignoring his suspicions in the parks and gardens of Pisa as possible. Why had the Shelleys even invited him here? He’d only met them a week before, but it seemed they’d taken a liking to him for some unholy reason.1 And now he was forced to occupy space with none other than Lord Byron, Aziraphale’s latest literary interest, who was somehow friends with the Shelleys and had an invitation to their home at the same time as Crowley. He glanced over at the window and was amazed to see that the sun was still fairly high in the sky. It felt like he had been in the Shelleys’ home for days, and yet it wasn’t even time for tea. 

“What are your thoughts on this, Mr. Crowley?” Percy asked, studying him through wine-drowsy eyes. The young man was perched on the arm of a settee, and Crowley wondered how long it would take until he overbalanced and fell off of it. 

“I think,” Crowley began, careful not to incite more vitriol between them, and even more careful not to tread harshly on old wounds of his own. “I think that you’ve both got the right of it. Revolutions are a bloodbath, too many people dragged down with the losing side that had nothing to do with the concept, innocent people who only voiced a tiny bit of dissent having their heads lopped off or getting thrown from windows or whatever else. But also, if you sit there and say nothing, well, sometimes that can be a fate worse than death, too. Everybody should be able to say what they think and ask questions, in my opinion, so long as what they think isn’t gonna hurt the people who are down, or start riots and all that rot. But that’s not always how it works, is it? As long as there’s separate camps who disagree, somebody’s gonna get hurt. That’s what I think.”

The three writers stared at him, and Crowley adjusted his tinted glasses. 

“I am not certain anymore that you are as unaware of the world as you’d like us to think, Mr. Crowley. I see now why Percy likes you.” The dark-haired young woman, Mary, smiled at him and raised her glass in his direction. “Many say that there is no place for balance, for moderacy, in this world. The man who charges through the wall will certainly get bloody, however, and those who dismantle the wall with a hammer and chisel, a bit at a time, can see overwhelming progress with little damage to themselves. One must wield power responsibly.” 

Crowley wasn’t entirely sure that he knew what they were talking about anymore, but he brushed it off with a tilt of his head and a hum of vague assent. 

“Ugh, you and your _sensibilities,_ both of you. You can talk of moderation all day, but that doesn’t change the fact that even a limping devil like me can take you both in a fight.” George, or Lord Byron as he preferred to be called, lounged on a cushion-covered fainting couch, looking for all the world as if he expected someone to wander over and start feeding him grapes. After a moment’s pause, he levelled an assessing glance at Mary that sent flickers of protective irritation up Crowley’s spine. “Not that I’m in the habit of fighting ladies. I much prefer _other_ methods of addressing conflict.” 

Percy fell off the settee. “Ha! As if you could! Have you forgotten Switzerland, George? She’s already beaten you once.” 

“I have, in fact,” Mary added, and settled further into her comfortable armchair by the fireplace with no small amount of pride.

“Yes, well, who cares about scary monsters and death and hubris? I’m touted as the _Greatest Living English Poet_ , _The Inimitable Lord Byron,_ according to critical reception in London. It appears that romance and carnality will outperform philosophy at every turn. Both of you are nothing in comparison to me. ‘Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.’”

“Yes, and how have your real-world romances been, dear George?” Percy crowed from where he sprawled across the Persian rug. “‘Remember me,’ that one poor woman wrote to you years ago, did she not? And you were so lost within the arms of another that you couldn’t be bothered. I am obviously a proponent of love for love’s sake and no other, but this seems to me a rocky _end_ to your _endless_ romantic acumen.” 

Byron grimaced. “Haunted by a skeleton, I was. I am glad to be rid of her. Let’s not talk about my love life. Unless you care to participate in it, it is of no interest to you.”

The grandfather clock in the corner chimed three times, and the Shelleys looked at each other. 

“Well, as diverting as this day has been, I fear that my husband and I must take our leave. We have some pressing engagements to attend to at a philosophy symposium this evening, so I’m afraid that you two will be on your own. You both can stay as you wish, but please, Byron, do not even _think_ of bringing animals into our home again. We would happily rescind all future invitations if you do.” Mary turned away from Byron in favor of smiling at Crowley again, and he had the distinct impression that she saw something _redeemable_ in him somehow. He didn’t want to think about why, and so he let the uncanny feeling roll over him unexamined.

The young couple levered themselves to standing and swayed a bit on their feet. Crowley had no idea how they expected to seem presentable at a symposium, but to each their own.

“Come along, darling,” Mary said, and looped an arm through her husband’s. They leaned on each other as they made their way out, and Mary spared one last glance at Crowley before the parlor door clicked shut behind them. 

There was silence for only a moment before Byron lifted an arm and pointed an accusing finger at Crowley. “So, _Mr. Crowley,_ what’s your story, hm? You don’t exactly have the look of a man who enjoys reading. Or socializing. Or _life,_ to be quite honest. You’ve been glaring at me this last few hours, and I’d like to know why. Husband to a rumored conquest of mine, perhaps?” 

Crowley glowered at him. 

“See, that’s what I mean! No man is that grouchy when he’s got a few cups in him unless he’s got an axe to grind. So, Mr. Crowley. _Grind the axe._ I could use a good argument since John Keats was taken by consumption last year. I’m bored.” Byron adjusted the nonsensical turban he wore and smirked, eyes glinting in the light from the window. 

Crowley took care to ensure not too much hiss found its way into his words. “You mentioned earlier that carnality always wins over philosophy earlier. I assume you meant your _Don Juan_ fellow.”

Byron grinned. “Yes, among other things. People become so depressed, so melancholy, stuck in the rut of the way that society functions. Women enjoy a bit of agency, men enjoy a bit of power, and the same applies to romance. I simply remove the obstacles that stand in the way, present a scenario in which passion comes freely to both, and everyone is happy.” 

“I don’t think they are happy, though. That sort of life… It’s unfulfilling. You’ve painted your hero as a man who cannot resist pleasures and the world as a den of temptation. You never allow him to settle, and he just falls in love over and over again with people who would never stay, never care to be there for him, and those few people he does find, he loses because the cruelty of the world cannot allow him to be happy with the person he loves. Every interaction he has is barely more than chaff in the breeze to him. Is that what you enjoy? You think love is nothing more than that?”

Byron stretched luxuriously, taking pains to show off his long neck from where his shirt had come undone a few glasses into the afternoon. “I mentioned that one shouldn’t discuss a person’s love life unless one wants a part in it. Are you certain you want to ask me these sorts of questions?”

Crowley sneered. “Oh no, you do not get to try that on me. I asked what you really think about this stuff because I have a… _friend._ Who enjoys your work. And I wanted to know why.”

“Aha,” Byron sighed. “I wasn’t so far off when I asked if you were a jilted husband, then. Though, from the sounds of it, you never quite became a husband, or even a lover, to this _friend_ of yours, did you?”

“....No. We. We aren’t like that.”

“Not for lack of trying, I bet. Yes, yes, the struggles of the common man whose love prefers to spend their youth in revelry rather than jailed within the confines of marriage. You cannot expect a person to wait for you, you know. They will do as they please, and well they should. If you fear that your love is interested in enjoying the attentions of another, you can do nothing to stop them. Even marriage is of little consequence when the option for entertainment arises.” 

Byron’s face was attractively Romanesque, his features clean and well-formed. Crowley could see why someone might be inclined to see what all the fuss was about. But that sort of fleeting attraction was no match for someone who was devoted, someone who stayed, someone who never asked for anything beyond companionship.

He thought of John Donne and his warm home, his happy children, their cheap clothing. He thought of Dante and his long-suffering love for a woman he’d spoken to only a few times in his life. He thought of every poet he’d met over the millennia, every person who had shaped his idea of what love should be like. 

Love should have no borders, he thought, but love also meant setting someone free, if they wished to leave. He was being paranoid. There was no reason to think that Aziraphale’s distance meant that he’d fallen in love with someone. But the expressions the angel wore sometimes while thinking in the quiet of the back room of the bookshop, the little sighs and flushes and smiles he made, sometimes without any prompting, his thoughts somewhere far away from Crowley even when they were in the same room--he couldn’t ignore the signs. 

“I just thought that you might be able to tell me why you think loving one person for your entire life is impossible. Or at least, why you seem to think it isn’t worthwhile even if it is possible.”

“Ha! My dear fellow, I only speak from experience. I am a writer, and even I know that you cannot hold a pen or paper as you can a lover. Beauty is the motivation for the pursuit of all that life has to offer. People collect pebbles on the sea strand, worthless though they are, because they are shiny. A butterfly collector destroys what he loves so that he can keep it forever. Mankind uses and discards love as simply another of these shining things that has lost its lustre, or else they hoard it, keep it for themselves, even to the detriment of that which is kept. I am a pragmatist, Mr. Crowley. I know that I am a beautiful thing. But, mark my words, I will not be kept.” Byron leaned forward and fixed Crowley with a withering look, one which sent a bolt of ice into his demonic soul. “If you think that your love would wait for you, would refrain from pocketing pebbles of their own, would resign themself willingly to a life of being kept in the dark, you are wrong.”

Crowley couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak. Without a sound, he gathered his coat and hat. He could feel Byron’s eyes boring into his back, but he didn’t care. He needed to leave. He needed to return to Aziraphale. He needed a nap. He--he wasn’t sure what he needed. His coat swished as he made his way out the door, something he had always taken pleasure in in the past, but now it felt like a weight, like the pressure of black wings, folded and heavy, pulling him towards the earth. He slammed the door behind him and did not look back.

  1. For all he knew, the reason truly could have been unholy. Poets were known for their fascination with the Underworld, and after what had happened with Goethe and his fascination with Mephistopheles, Crowley could never be sure. 




	9. The Garden of Love by William Blake (1789)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The triumphant conclusion with thoughts of gardens, fulfilled hopes, and a poem that brings our lovers together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done, everyone!!! I'm so happy to be sharing this with all of you, and I hope this chapter brings you joy! And I simply could not have done it without my wonderful and amazing RBB partner, [Eganantiquus/saintofnovember](https://eganantiquus.carrd.co/)  
> !! Just look at that art! So gorgeous!!! Please show them all the love because they 1000000% deserve it!!
> 
> Crowley's addition to 'The Garden Of Love' is my own composition, but obviously the rest of the poem is by William Blake!

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore. 

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

  
  


Crowley was terrified, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.1 He had been avoiding Aziraphale for a few years, trying to work out what he should do, how he should handle the growing warmth in his chest. The love itself he’d dealt with well enough through the poetry, but the possessiveness, the longing, the ache in his bones, these things were all terribly dramatic and he hated them with a burning passion. Aziraphale was no prize to be won, and Crowley could not--would not--stop him if he wished to take a lover. A lover that wasn’t Crowley. Crowley gritted his teeth. It was the least he could do to be there for the angel, and even if he had to spend the rest of his life sitting and watching Aziraphale live happily with someone else, he would gladly do so, would  _ deliberately make time _ to do so, just for the privilege of seeing the angel lit up with joy. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t the one causing the joy, no. Aziraphale would be safe and happy, and Crowley couldn’t hope to ask for anything more.

So after a number of years, he wasn’t even sure how many,2 it had been an utter shock to receive an invitation to the bookshop, written on the angel's personal stationery and stamped in light blue wax with his personal signet ring. The contents of the invitation had been vague and concise, no doubt to avoid scrutiny if the letter had been intercepted by either of their head offices, but the gist was that Crowley was to report to the bookshop for a visit three days’ after the date he received the correspondence to discuss something of great importance. 

And so, the day had come. Crowley stood on the landing outside the bookshop, gripping the brim of his hat in his hands tightly enough that it would have been warped beyond repair if it didn’t know better than to show weakness. 

This had to be an ordinary meeting about the Arrangement, no doubt. A discussion of some assignment Aziraphale couldn’t be bothered with. Or perhaps Aziraphale intended to introduce Crowley to his significant other. That would count as _something of great importance. 3_ And yet, he couldn’t help wondering why, after years of silence, Aziraphale had gone to the effort of sending him a formal invitation instead of simply finding him like he had always done in the past. His terror reared its head over and over again, and Crowley forced himself to breathe.4

Finally, riding a wave of adrenaline, Crowley knocked twice on the bookshop’s door. The sign in the window said that the shop was closed, but Aziraphale had always opened the door to him in the past regardless. He could only trust that this time would be more of the same. 

Sure enough, before Crowley even had time to worry, Aziraphale appeared in the doorway, looking so pleased to see him that Crowley had to swallow down a highly embarrassing sound that had bubbled up in his throat. 

“Crowley, so goo--ah, absolutely _tip-top_ that you could join me. Won’t you come in?” Aziraphale looked exactly as he had the last time Crowley had seen him, soft and comfortable and sporting a frilly white neckerchief to match his fluffy white hair. Crowley could have cried at the sight of him, but he refused to be even the slightest bit of an emotional disaster in front of him. 

“Of course, angel. It’s been awhile.” Obligingly, he stepped inside the shop, hoping against all hope that none of his turmoil was showing on his face. 

Aziraphale took his hat and coat for him, and his hands brushed delicately over Crowley’s arms as he did so. This was deeply strange. Usually the angel could barely stand to be within a few feet of him, but something had evidently shifted in the time they’d been apart. Crowley didn’t dare think on what had changed and merely allowed the angel to do as he pleased. 

Soon enough, they had been successfully relocated to the back room of the bookshop, and Aziraphale stood by and waited until Crowley took a seat on the sofa. 

“My apologies if it’s uncomfortable at all. Nobody’s sat on that sofa in a few years, so it might have gotten a bit lax.” Aziraphale’s eyes sparkled, as if he had just told a hilarious joke and was waiting for Crowley to laugh. Crowley did not laugh. He especially did not feel like laughing when Aziraphale took a seat on the sofa beside him.

Aziraphale gestured, and suddenly there was a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands. Crowley didn’t know that he could take this interaction if he were intoxicated, but he accepted the freshly-filled glass when it was offered to him. At the very least, it would give him something to do with his hands.

“So, Aziraphale, what’s the occasion? Need me to make a trip to Liverpool to bless a convent? Pop across the channel and bring you back some brioche?” 

Aziraphale smiled, and Crowley’s chest seized. “Not quite, though the brioche does sound delectable. I had actually called you here to ask your thoughts on poetry. I am considering commissioning a poet, and you have always had such a sharp eye for talent of that sort, so I thought that I might ask your opinion.” 

Crowley’s eyes widened so much that they could probably be seen behind his glasses. “Poetry? That’s the  _ thing of great importance _ ?” His fingers tightened on his glass of wine. Maybe he  _ should  _ have a drink to help him through this.

Aziraphale wiggled excitedly.

“Right,” Crowley said, trying to think up a way to keep Aziraphale’s attention off of the very dangerous truth that lie down this conversational path. “What, ah. What did you have in mind, then?”

The angel’s posture straightened a bit, and he seemed to be gearing up for something. Crowley’s mind raced. “What is your opinion on love poetry, Crowley?”

And there it was. A raw and fleshy part of himself, soft and small and buried deep in Crowley’s chest, shivered and sank down into his gut as if someone had dropped an anchor on it. “S’fine, I guess. ‘F you like that sort of thing. W-who would the poem be for?” 

A pale blush danced across Aziraphale’s cheeks, soft as everything else about him, and it wasn’t for Crowley. It would never be for Crowley. “Well, actually, I was hoping that the poem would be, um, for me. Terribly vain of me, I know, but it is always so nice to have something to think about when I’m alone for a spell. To know that someone special is thinking of me.” 

Crowley stared down at his wine. “Yeah, I can imagine it would be.” He had to stop, he had to stop, he couldn't say what he was about to-- “You’re in love with a poet, then? That’s what you wanted to tell me? Just bein’ all cagey about it? You’re asking for my  _ opinion _ ?” 

Byron had been right. He’d been right all along, and Crowley had to face the music he’d been running from for the last four years.

Aziraphale gasped quietly, and his blush traveled up to his ears. It was heart-wrenchingly adorable and told Crowley everything he needed to know before the angel even said a word. “I suppose you could say that.”

The soft thing in his chest writhed. “Right, yeah, got it. ’S fine. Fantastic, angel. Whatever you want.” 

“Oh, that’s  _ wonderful,  _ Crowley.” He was beaming now, and it looked like Crowley would get a running start on the whole  _ watching Aziraphale be happy without him  _ thing. He’d just never expected it to be so soon. “Now, what do you think of garden imagery, hm? A certain poem by William Blake comes to mind. Terribly sad, that one.” 

Aziraphale stood and walked over to a bookshelf at the opposite side of the room, leaving his glass of wine on a tiny side table as he did so. He pulled a book, a pristine first edition of William Blake poetry that Crowley hadn’t seen before, from the shelf without even pausing to glance at the titles, clearly too familiar with his collection to even miss a beat. The truth of it hit Crowley. All those poems, all those words Crowley had written for Aziraphale, all those days spent talking to poets and learning about love, all of it had been nothing more than a flight of fancy. Aziraphale had noticed some of it, enough to mention one of Crowley’s inspired poems by name, but he had never paid attention to the person who’d gifted him the poems in the first place, too enamored with the names on the page to see the pitiful being in front of him. And now the garden, the very thing Crowley used to escape from his thoughts of Aziraphale, his one refuge, would be used to tell a story of Aziraphale’s love for someone else.

Suddenly, he was struck by an anger he hadn’t felt in years.  _ No,  _ he insisted to himself,  _ I promised not to do this. He is free to make his own choices to love whoever he wants, and I will not stand in his way.  _ Nonetheless, the anger grew unchecked and undamped by his own warnings. 

“Yeah,  _ Garden of Love,  _ right? Some garden. What was it it turns into? Rows of graves?” He remembered this poem. He’d been having a bad week, too many things reminding him of the Fall. He’d known Aziraphale would never want him, and he’d told William Blake as much. The man had produced the most depressing poem of all the ones thus far, and Crowley had been so ashamed of letting his woes get the best of him that he’d only given it to Aziraphale over a decade after it had been written, stuffed in the middle of a bunch of other ones he’d managed to pick up here and there. Apparently the poem hadn’t faded away into the background as much as he’d hoped. “Pretty awful, if you ask me.” 

Aziraphale smiled tenderly at him. “I thought it was sweet.”

_ Oh,  _ that was  _ it.  _ If Aziraphale wanted memories of a garden, he’d get them.

With a single thought, Crowley miracled the sofa into a luxurious, sweeping chaise, vanished his wine, and did away with his stuffy clothes in favor of a loose draping toga, white instead of grey as it had been all those millennia before. He couldn’t bear the demonic connotations that dark clothing would bring, not now. After a moment of consideration, he allowed his hair to grow into long, luscious curls, just as it had been in Eden, the better to draw whatever memories Aziraphale might have had to the fore. He draped himself over the chaise, and began to recite part of the poem, sarcastically waving his hands about as if he were performing as a  _ particularly _ dramatic version of Hamlet. “‘And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, and binding with briars, my joys and desires.’ Sounds not a bit like something somebody in a healthy relationship would write. Might as well have the speaker fall into a black pit or something. No, no, angel, you deserve better. If you’re gonna love someone, for Go--Sa--anybody’s sake, at least give yourself a happily ever after.”

For once, he thought he might have struck Aziraphale speechless.

“So, um, yeah. Let your  _ poet  _ do right by you. Don’t settle for anything less than happiness. Or else you’ll get stuck like me, waiting around in a garden somewhere.” He’d meant it as a joke, a little hint that he’d be okay, that he had been okay for this long already. Aziraphale didn’t even crack a hint of a smile.

“Crowley,” he began. “If you were the poet, and you didn’t like the ending much, what would you do? How do you think it should end?” His face was carefully neutral.

“I... Me? You want to know how I’d--? Um.” Crowley gathered himself and leaned back against the chaise, allowing himself to imagine for a moment, solely because Aziraphale had asked him to. “Okay. Um. Okay. I’d end it with…” He took a deep breath and drew upon everything he’d learned, all of his love, all of his devotion, his last scraps of hope. How did it happen again, all those years ago, in the first garden? The humans spoke of love, there was an apple, the humans had been cast out, he’d met his angel, and he’d fallen in love without a moment’s hesitation. The world had begun for him that day. 

“But I saw there a heavy-boughed tree, with fruits aglow, brighter than flame.” He paused. For good or for ill, Aziraphale would know after this. He would have to. “And a chorus, adored, out from it poured, and bade me pursue my dear love anew.” 

Aziraphale stood still, so perfectly rigid that Crowley feared he’d frozen time without realizing it. Finally, he spoke. “Crowley. You are a poet.” He stopped at the bewildered expression on Crowley’s face, straightened his tie, and tried again. “You are  _ the  _ poet. You are  _ my  _ poet. And you’ve been writing about me for over two thousand years. I know it’s always been you.”

Crowley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The weight was gone from the soft fleshy thing in his chest, and it floated tentatively back up to the place it had lived for millennia. “I… I thought you were in love with one of the…”

Aziraphale shook his head slowly, a hint of sadness hidden in his eyes. “I am in love with one poet.  _ My  _ poet. And no one else. Never ever anybody else.”

Little tremors traveled up and down Crowley’s spine. “You chose the one with a sad ending, Aziraphale. Out of all the poems I gave you. Why? Why did you ask me to come here? What was all of this? I don’t understand. Please, angel, tell me why.”

“I asked you to come here because I wanted to tell you how I felt, that I knew how  _ you _ felt, before you pulled away from me completely. When you came to me at my call, I thought you knew the reason, that you had only been giving me time. And when you asked me if I… loved a poet, I thought you’d simply beaten me to it. I thought… I never thought to consider how all of this might have sounded, Crowley. But… I can feel your love through these poems. It’s always been you. I chose the one about the garden because it felt unfinished, and I always wondered how it would feel to hear your words from the source, not simply the idea of them, barely recognizable and pressed down onto paper with a hand not your own. I wanted to finish the poem, Crowley. I wanted to know how it would end.” 

Aziraphale stood before Crowley, softly glowing, the manifestation of everything good and right in the world. He still held the book of Blake poetry, fingers slack around it as if he’d forgotten it existed. His attention was locked on Crowley and Crowley alone, and he was tracing Crowley’s sharp features with gentle eyes, an expression of love shining on his face. It was just as wonderful as Crowley had always dreamed.

Crowley swallowed and licked his lips, trembling all over. He was still resting against the back of the chaise, and he wasn’t sure he could muster the faculties to do more than simply gaze up at Aziraphale in awe. “D-Did you like it? The ending?”

“Oh, darling,” Aziraphale whispered, a gentle smile blooming over his face that was far brighter than any star in the heavens. “I couldn’t ask for anything better. But I’d prefer, now that I’ve heard it, to think of it as a beginning. Cliche though it may be, I don’t think I can quite bring myself to let this be all there is.” 

****

****

They looked at each other for a long moment, each of them frozen in a moment of quiet disbelief, silent companionship, newly-realized hope. It was sickeningly sweet, and Crowley wanted to live in it forever. 

“So, we’re together now? Is that what’s happening, angel? We love each other and we’re together?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed the tiniest bit, and Crowley braced for impact. He had half a mind to pray, to beg a God he figured wasn’t even listening to let him keep this for just a second longer. 

“I...I suppose we are. Not that we haven’t  _ always _ been together, my dear. But…” He hesitated. “We haven’t kept our heads down for so long just because we were afraid to break free from the mold. There are still certain…  _ realities.  _ We cannot live openly, Crowley. Not yet. Oh, my darling, my  _ love,  _ could you ever find it in your heart to wait for me, even after I have taken so long to bring us together at all? I wish--Oh, if I could, I would take you in my arms in front of all the world at this very moment. But the dangers we might face if we act on this, if we move too fast--I can hardly bear to think of it.” 

Crowley watched as the angel’s eyes filled with tears, and he stood from the chaise to take the angel’s hands in his. “Angel. My angel.  _ Aziraphale.  _ I would wait for even if this whole world was  _ destroyed _ . I would wait for you even if we never touched like this, never said another word to each other ever again. I mean, it’s been just shy of six millennia since we met, right? What’s a bit longer to wait when we’ve been waiting that long already?” He remembered a day in Persia, a man who loved wine and laughter. “Sometimes good things are worth waiting for. You’re the best thing of all.” 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley as if he had offered him the entire Earth and all its wonders.5 “My dear, how I adore you.”

Crowley felt his face flush. He allowed his clothing to return to the way it had been when he had first entered the shop, suddenly feeling terribly exposed and tender. He might well cease to be able to stand if he remained as he was, draped in memories of their past, memories of the two beginnings they had now shared together. He kept his hair long, however. He wanted to look in the mirror every day and remember this moment, know that it had been real, not simply a fiction from his wildest imaginings. 

Trancelike, Crowley and Aziraphale walked in silence, hand-in-hand, towards the bookshop entrance. They were both aware that their time for the day was drawing to a close, but the desire to remain close to each other for as long as they could kept their shoulders brushing and their hands clasped tightly together.

“When will I see you again, angel?”

“As soon as I can manage it, my love.”

Crowley nodded, breathless with joy and love. The satisfaction he felt knowing that he would be waiting for a tangible future, something more than a distant hope, sang in his bones. He could barely contain himself. “Aziraphale, may I kiss you?” 

Aziraphale’s glow was so pronounced now that he could have lit the entire building, and indeed the entire street. “Of course, Crowley. Please.”

Reverently, Crowley lifted Aziraphale’s soft hand to his lips, breathing him in, feeling the warmth as it seeped into his skin, smiling into it while he watched Aziraphale’s eyelashes flutter and his cheeks darken so beautifully. He would die for this angel. He would live for him too.

Ever so slowly, Crowley withdrew from the kiss, conscious of Aziraphale’s focus on his every move. Aziraphale’s lips had parted a bit, tears of amazement glistening in his eyes. The angel ducked his head just the tiniest bit when he’d come back to himself, suddenly shy, before lifting his eyes to Crowley’s again. He looked somehow resolute and coy and nervous at once. 

“You missed, my dear.”

Crowley could barely stop to think before Aziraphale’s free hand had wound tenderly into his curls, drawing him ever closer. 

“Is this alright?” Aziraphale whispered, looking into Crowley’s eyes. 

Crowley answered him by crossing the last sliver of distance, pressing their lips together for the first time, gentle as the brush of a feather. It lasted no longer than a few seconds, but they were some of the sweetest seconds of his life. He finally understood what all the fuss was about. 

When they separated, Aziraphale moved his hand from where it had been tangled in Crowley’s hair to gently caress his face. “See, darling? You’ve always had the perfect words after all. And this… This is the best beginning anyone might hope for.” Aziraphale was out of breath, just from those few moments of simple touch, and Crowley  _ loved _ him.

Suddenly, the angel’s face became playfully stern. “But don’t think you can get out of writing now. I intend to commission my poet as often as I can for the rest of my life. There is no one else who could even begin to compare.”

“Angel,” Crowley sighed. “I would write of you until I had no more words left to give.”

And so it was that they set out on a journey of their own. Crowley loved Aziraphale, and said so, and Aziraphale loved him back. After all that time, after all that had transpired before, they could face the future together. It was finally time to leave the garden.

  1. He knew exactly why. 
  2. This was a lie. It had been four years, three months, and thirteen days. Crowley’d kept a paper calendar with him every day since he’d met Lord Byron and subsequently decided to give Aziraphale some space. 
  3. It would certainly be important to Crowley. But as has been mentioned, he would not bellyache about it. He was a demon and could handle a bit of heartache now and then. A little nap for a decade or two and he’d be right as rain. 
  4. He didn’t need to, but it was a relaxing habit and allowed him to pretend every now and then that he was just as human as the rest of the people on the street. Blending in was important to Crowley, especially when he felt a bit too demonic for his own taste. Like now. 
  5. In some ways, Crowley supposed he had. 




End file.
